


...and cried, "Somebody touched me"

by BlindSwandive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry barista is angry, Gen, Language, Neglected Teenchester, POV Outsider, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, too much caffeine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 18:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlindSwandive/pseuds/BlindSwandive
Summary: Why that skinny little boy needs so much caffeine, she can only guess.  Outsider POV.This was written for Twisted Tropes: Dark Roast, inspired bythemegalosaurus'prompt:Prompt: tween Sam's caffeine dependencyI keep thinking of adolescent Sam in episode 7x03 ordering some kind of horrendous quadruple-shot coffee to keep him awake while he's researching a case. So maybe an outsider POV story with a young Sam who drinks too much coffee, is always studying weird-looking books, and doesn't seem to have a parent in evidence.Many thanks to the fabAlyndrafor taking time out even at the panicked height of Big Bang season to beta, and for always challenging me and making my writing better by doing it. <3





	...and cried, "Somebody touched me"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themegalosaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/gifts).



Tamra was tired.

Always. Perpetually. Maybe terminally.

Her friends teased her about the irony of working in a coffee shop and still managing to be tired. She tried to laugh it off, but she’d been working in this bullshit, dead-end job for so long she’d honestly started to hate the smell of coffee, and Coke in the morning made her teeth feel nasty, and sweet tea was for sipping slow on the porch in summer with a lot of ice, not for sucking down like a drug before work, so her caffeine options were seriously limited. 

She hated just about everything about the job, these days. Her boss. Her shift managers. Her coworkers. The customers.

Lordy, did she hate the customers. Maybe them most of all, even more than that bitter, dog-shit coffee smell. Karen (shift manager, weekends) was a close second (fuck you, Karen, I’m not wearing the damn bullshit flower on my apron I don’t care if it’s the first damn bullshit day of spring), but by the end of a shift the customers always edged Karen out in Tamra’s hate game.

There were the occasional morning and lunch-hour triple-shot, extra-foam, soy-bullshit day traders. The bitchy white girls asking for their goddamn Caramel Macchiatos and Frappuccinos like the world was designed to accommodate them no matter where they were, even if for the last time this wasn’t a Starbucks (“Oh my _God,_ what do you _mean_ you don’t make them here?”). The misers with exact change and nothing left for a tip other than to maybe tell her to go back to school if she wanted to earn more than minimum wage and not die young and hungry behind the counter (fuck you, too, Hilary-with-one-“L” and no foam or I’m calling the manager).

(She’d tried wearing an educational pin, once, about how minimum wage was even lower in the tipping professions in this state, but her boss made her take it off. Fuck him twice.)

Now that school was out for the day, Tamra steeled herself for all the teens who’d be stopping through on the way home from the high school. They weren’t as bad as the traders on their fancy phones who didn’t even hang up to order (Tamra’s mother would have slapped her across the face for doing something like that and not thought twice), but the kids _never_ tipped, and they pissed on the seats in the bathroom and didn’t wipe it up after, and most of them didn’t actually buy anything, just hung around with the one friend who did, taking up space and making noise. It had gotten so bad that she started seething preemptively about 2:55 pm every day, because odds were 10:1 she’d be mopping up piss before she even got to her next break. 

She got through half a dozen punks before there was a lull and she had a second to herself to breathe and wipe down counters and surreptitiously dab her forehead with a napkin. The door jingled and she said, “Welcome to Sacred Grounds,” automatically, without even thinking. There was a mumbled, “Thank you,” which was unusual enough during the high school hours that she almost looked up, but only almost. 

When she finished wiping down every required surface and washing her hands, she spared the new entry a glance, but the little white boy with the mop top was still hanging back, scrounging around in his backpack and counting out his coins and crumpled bills. She tried not to glower too obviously, but she was working up an anticipatory “fuck you, too” head of steam over it. Another customer came, was served, and left before the boy (maybe twelve or thirteen) had finished scavenging and sat down, moving onto scribbling on a piece of notepaper like he was doing math problems.

If the little shit was just going to do his homework and not buy anything, Tamra prayed her shift manager would come back on duty soon. Corinne was a queen bitch and no fooling, but at least she didn’t tolerate the school kids loitering, and got paid enough to be allowed to throw them out.

Tamra spent a minute taking deep breaths, tried saying the little prayer for serenity her mama taught her, even washed her hands again though they were dry as hell already, but the kid just kept scribbling, biting the end of his pencil, and occasionally tossing sneaky glances up towards the counter, hair in his eyes that made her itch for a pair of scissors. In the end, she settled for passive aggressive and folded her arms, settling in to wait him out, stare him down. 

When he saw her looking, he blanched, and Tamra felt a little bigger. (It was always a risk to give the evil eye to the white boys—you never knew whose Daddy was a judge or a policeman or a redneck with a 12-gauge who might take exception—but when it worked it was so much better than any tip.) She raised her eyebrows expectantly and asked, “What can I get you?”

Now she was glad Corinne was still out flirting in the alley with the delivery man. That tone might have gotten her pay docked on principle.

The boy brought his skinny ass up to the counter fast, clutching all his coins in one hand and his paper and pencil in the other, flicking his eyes over the menu one last time. “Sorry,” he began, and Tamra was startled. “Sorry,” he repeated, “could I get a… a medium coffee?”

Not from around here, then. No kid from Kenner or Metairie ever apologized to her for taking his time ordering, and anyway, his accent was too flat, no Louisiana in it at all. 

“Yes, sir,” Tamra said, falling back into habitual forced politeness. “Room for cream and sugar?”

“Yes,” he breathed, sounding almost desperate, “definitely.” His eyes were roving longingly over the row of bottles with every flavor syrup in the world, the can of whipped cream, the cookies in the display case. 

“Flavor shot’s only fifty cents,” she said, a little coyly, but instead of looking tempted or brightening up, the boy’s face fell.

“Thanks, that’s—that’s okay. Thank you, though.”

He sounded miserable. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked see-through pale to her. 

“All right, sugar,” she said, softening up a little, and pulled down a cup. He was counting coins and bills out onto the counter before she even rang his total. “Name for your order?”

“Sam,” he said, and slid his money forward while she marked the cup. 

Tamra punched the order into the cash register, then, and when she got the total, she found the kid—Sam—had managed exact change. He’d even figured the sales tax right, which was hard enough for locals to do, let alone visitors. She snuck a glance down at his crumpled paper, and saw it was littered with long division and scribbled percent and dollar signs. 

“You figured out the tax on your own?” she asked, begrudgingly admiring, while she filled the paper cup. He was still counting out coins.

“Yeah, I—I’m taking algebra, so it’s good practice,” he said, sounding a little evasive. She was pretty sure his shoes were about worn through at the toes, so it was probably more about exactly how many coins he had to spare. But he checked his notes and dropped coins in her tip jar, when she handed over his coffee, and she took back every nasty thought she’d directed his way.

***

“Ain’t you gotta get home for dinner, Boo?” Tamra asked, a couple hours later, when she came back from a break and found the boy still hunched over the table he’d commandeered. 

He looked up, eyes a little red from staring at the pile of odd books littered around him. “Huh?” he asked, scattered.

“Nevermind, Boo,” she said, practically kindly. “Just figured somebody must be missing you.”

“No,” he said, vaguely, and went back to his book. Tamra shrugged it off and set on a fresh pot, trying not to let that worry her too much. 

It was another half hour or so before the boy looked, dismayed, into his empty cup and fished in his pockets for the rest of his change. He brought the cup back up to the counter and handed it to her. “Could I have another medium coffee, please?” he asked, so earnestly it made her heart hurt a little. Compared to the disaster that had been cleaning out the men’s bathroom before her break, the polite little boy was practically a breath of spring.

“Of course, Boo,” she said, “room for cream and sugar again?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am! She cracked a smile, in spite of herself. “Where you from, sugar?”

“Uh, all over?” he said, at a loss. “My dad’s—he moves us around a lot.”

“Military?” she asked, knowingly. “My cousin’s husband’s moved her and her babies probably four times since they got married,” she confided, while the percolator hissed and bubbled. “Airforce.”

“Yeah,” the boy said, but didn’t sound sure. He was studying the counter and his face was getting a little splotchy pink, like maybe he was embarrassed about it, or like maybe that wasn’t the reason at all. He was fishing in his pockets again, like there was some dime unaccounted for.

Hm. “Gonna be a minute,” she said, an idea percolating along with the coffee, “I’ll bring it over to you when it’s ready. Lots of cream and sugar, right?”

“Yes, please,” he said, painfully sincere. He slid most of the money forward, and then recounted the remaining change, checked his note, and dumped all the coins dutifully into her jar. 

Tamra watched him go back to his chair, leaning his head into his hands like it was too heavy to hold up with just his neck. If she was reading things right, this boy with barely two nickels to rub together had done a goddamn math problem to figure out exactly how much coffee he could get for himself and still have enough leftover for tax and tip. Even if that meant getting it plain and stirring in a stack of sugar and nasty creamer packets with one of those awful little red plastic sticks.

Once he seemed absorbed in his work, she started some milk steaming and snuck two pumps of caramel into the cup. Her mama always told her it paid to repay kindness with like, and no little boy who would do algebra for her and drink the nasty stuff so he could afford her tip should be stuck with bitter dogshit coffee.

She even snuck a swirl of whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel on the top, before snapping a new lid on. Corinne was too busy flirting with the other delivery guy out back again, anyway, wasn’t like anyone would notice but her.

“Bet you do real good in school,” she said when she set it down beside him, though that could _not_ be a textbook, not with those twisty red letters and spooky drawings. Sam just shrugged, looking shy, but thanked her—again.

She tried not to watch him to figure out when he’d notice what she’d done, even forcing herself to turn around and scrub out a sink instead, but he honest-to-God moaned when he hit cream and caramel, and she grinned at the back wall.

He even wished her a good night before he left, and Tamra went home in a good mood for the first time since she couldn’t even remember when.

***

By the third afternoon of this, and Tamra’s third secret latte, Sam was looking at her like she was some kind of angel, some kind of saint, big puppy eyes bright even with the exhausted blue circles beneath them. The weight of it almost made her want to feel more charitable towards the other bullshit customers, at least until someone said "bless your heart" and meant "fuck you," and she had to say "thank you, ma'am," instead of "fuck you, too." 

He’d taken to sneaking little breaks from studying his bizarre, massive books to watch her when she cleaned, when he didn’t realize she could see him reflected in the steel milk pitcher, and she slid him a cookie folded in a napkin next time she passed. When she got home that night, she told her mama about the little white boy with a crush who kept coming by. Mama told her to be careful (like she needed to be told) but said how she was happy Tamra wasn’t coming home with steam coming out of her ears for once. Said how she always thought Tamra was only looking for an excuse to be sweet, however hard she made herself on the outside. Tamra tried to be harder the next day to prove her wrong, but it only lasted until 3:45 pm.

“What’s—can I ask your name?” Sam asked, splotchy pink again, and Tamra extended a hand.

“Miss Tamra,” she said, primly, since she thought she could get away with it, with this one.

“Miss Tamra,” he repeated, and he grinned, all dimples, when he shook her hand, skin rough but grip soft. 

Definitely a crush.

“So what’s in those big books you keep lugging around, Boo?” she asked, while she ignored his order and made him something nicer. She was even going to sneak in an espresso shot for those droopy little eyelids.

“Oh,” he said, and made up an unconvincing lie. “They’re for a—a history project, a paper on… on ancient… myths…” He trailed off and didn’t look back up.

“Mmhmm,” she said, knowingly. (To be fair, she didn’t know what he _was_ up to, just that it probably wasn’t that.) “Something you don’t want your mama to see, huh?”

Sam fish-mouthed at his shoes and went pale. “It’s—no, it’s—it’s not that,” he said, but Tamra knew that look. She’d struck a nerve, and though he still thanked her excessively, he was otherwise quiet the rest of the afternoon, deep under some dark cloud of his own.

An hour later, Corinne came up beside Tamra and asked out the side of her mouth, "How long has Ragamuffin there been nursing his first coffee?" She had that look she got when she was ready to clean house, and while Tamra usually got a vicious little glee when Corinne put on her Big Mama voice and ran out the little teen shits, the thought of her turning it on Sam got her mad as a wet cat.

"Don't you dare put the broom to that little boy, Corinne," she hissed, "or I swear to Jesus I'll--"

Corinne's big blue eyes looked fit to bulge out of her pretty little face, and Tamra could see her paycheck drying up under a pile of citations--maybe taking the whole job with it. She started stammering frantic apologies; they sounded sincere enough when you let the very real fear of poverty fuel them. "Oh--oh, my Lord, Miss Corinne, I'm so sorry, I don't--I can't--I didn't mean to say it like that, please--"

Corinne looked at her all piss and vinegar and May I Have a Word and Please Step Into the Store Room Right Now Tamra and Tamra closed her eyes and tried her mama’s serenity prayer again before following her back.

“Miss Corinne,” she tried urgently, once she’d got herself smoothed out, “I’m very sorry about that, I am. But that little boy ain’t got no mama to go home to and--" Tamra dug her fingernails hard into her palms to keep her nerves and voice steady. "Well, we don’t need the space right now, so I’d just as soon let him stay.” She swallowed at a lump in her throat that was part fear, part fury, part heartbreak. 

Corinne opened her mouth and gawped. Tamra knew it must seem like snow in July, her taking any kind of shine to... well, anyone that came within a block of the shop, really, and actually _defending_ a customer, rather than muttering under her breath on her break. Frankly, Tamra was just as surprised by the whole thing as Corinne. But a sweet boy with no mama was a sweet boy with no mama, and Tamra saw the exact second Corinne's hard little heart broke, same as hers had.

“Really? You sure?”

Tamra nodded grimly and lowered her voice to a whisper, even though no one should be able to hear from the storeroom. “I asked him wasn’t anybody worried about him staying so late, and didn’t he want his mama to see those books, and he just crumpled like a kicked dog. He ain’t from ‘round here and he’s always alone and he’s a nice boy, Miss Corinne, awful nice.”

“Shit,” Corinne said, finally, just as grim, and sighed. “Yeah, all right. He can stay, you just keep an eye on him, Tamra.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tamra agreed dutifully, and didn’t say that she’d have done that whatever Corinne said. 

A cookie wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if you lost your mama, but she snuck him one anyway, because what else could she do?

***

Sam didn’t come in over the weekend and Tamra had Monday and Tuesday off, that week, so she didn’t know until Wednesday that Sam had come by and “looked for all the world like a lovesick puppy” (Corinne’s words) when he realized Tamra wasn’t in. Corinne teased her mercilessly after that, just as mean as ever, but Tamra didn’t mind so much when Sam came in and lit up like a Christmas tree to see her behind the counter. Broke her heart a little, too—how lonely did a boy have to be to get so sweet on someone twice his age over a little whipped cream? 

First chance she got out from under Corinne’s eye, though, she snuck over to give him a slice of her mama’s chess pie. Might have been she brought it for him special, but if no one else was going to make this boy pie, Tamra wasn’t going to miss a slice.

Something with evil yellow eyes stared up at her from one of his spooky books. It had paws like an alligator but was covered in a coat of nasty hair. She shuddered. No wonder he needed the coffee; that was the kind of thing would keep you up nights.

Tamra honestly didn't know how she'd have survived in the world this long if she hadn't had her mama to come home to, to make the world a little safer and a little kinder, to make sure she ate and slept and took time to breathe. Tamra's mama had single-handedly kept her on the straight and narrow, kept her from doing anything too stupid or getting too mad or going too crazy in a world that was dangerous for girls who let their tempers get the better of them. That this boy was still kind and gentle with no one to bake him something sweet, to touch his shoulder and teach him to pray for strength, she figured that had to be something special.

It paid to repay kindness in kind, her mama said. Tamra wanted to mother him.

First bite of the sweet custard and the boy looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. Tamra wondered what he’d do if she brought him a slice of pecan.

***

Tamra locked up Thursday night, lost in her own thoughts—would Tasha want to go out for drinks tomorrow, was dinner waiting in the oven or would she be eating leftovers cold, what was that song stuck in her head (“And she cried O-oh Lord, o-oh Lord!”)—and generally not paying even a little attention to the alleyway, which was never a good idea on the best of days. She knew better and she’d kick herself over that later, thank you.

Normally she left in such high dudgeon that most anyone who thought he might creep around the alley and make trouble for a girl took one look at her and had another thought quick, and she’d brained more than one evil fool who hadn’t had so much sense with her pocketbook. But she was humming to herself—fucking _humming_ —and that was practically laying out the welcome mat at the front door and a how-do-you-take-your-tea-sugar. 

So what with this and that, she heard her little Boo shout out a panicked “Tamra!” before she realized some too-tall, too-big, too-nasty-smelling thing was practically on top of her, and then she hit the brick wall hard beside her so hard she couldn’t see or hear or think or—or anything else, really. She must have passed out, because next thing she knew she was on the ground, and there was a mess of limbs and shouting and growling somewhere off across the alley, and she couldn’t figure out how she’d missed the smell before, because now it was ripe enough she threw up into her own hair. Or else it was the pain in her head made her do that. Even money on that one, everything was tilting enough to make her dizzy.

Tamra managed to roll over, but when she tried to push up onto her hands one of her arms went out from under her, screaming pain, and she was back on the ground. “Fuck,” she muttered, trying not to breathe—she was too close to her own vomit and her head was pounding bad enough she felt like to pass out if she threw up again.

“Miss Tamra!” came urgently, maybe more than once—it was hard to hear over her own pulse—and then two small hands were pulling at her frantically, pulling her up until she was more or less sitting, and then trying to get her up to her feet, but she felt like lead, and like maybe she should just close her eyes again and take a nap because she was powerful tired. “Miss Tamra, please,” she heard, and it sounded so scared and so sad she managed to open an eye.

“Hey, Boo,” she slurred, and wasn’t sure why it sounded so muddy. “Jus’ thinkin’ ‘boutchoo.” She was pretty sure she was, anyway. Something to do with that song, and that “O-oh, lord!” 

“Dean! She has a concussion,” Sam shouted. “Help me with her!”

Somebody growled, “Little busy, Sammy!” and then there was a shriek that sounded like a nightmare and she closed her eyes again to get away from it.

“Miss Tamra, please, you have to get up,” Sam said, and he sounded on the verge of tears, and Tamra always did have a mother’s heart, her mama always told her so, even with her temper, and she couldn’t let the sweet child cry.

“Okay, Boo. Okay,” she said, and though it made her head scream to try, when he jammed his skinny little shoulder under her armpit, she held on tight and wobbled and lurched until somehow her feet got under her knees and she was upright. “Oh, Lord,” she said, and then laughed a little since it just reminded her of that damn song again.

“I’ve got you, Miss Tamra,” her sweet little Boo promised, and kept her steady enough that she didn’t run back into the wall, at least, which seemed like a pretty big deal at that moment. Everything was tilting left toward the bricks.

“You sure do, Boo,” she agreed, and she was humming again. “Somethin’ bout the hem of his garment, i’n’t it?” she asked, but he didn’t seem to know.

“Where do you live?” he asked, panting. Maybe he was holding up more of her weight than she realized. 

“Poor Boo,” she said, and tried to pat his hair, but she was shaking like a leaf and didn’t manage. When did it get so damn cold? 

“We gotta get you home, Miss Tamra, or to a hospital,” Sam insisted, “I think you’re going into shock.”

She vaguely registered that that didn’t sound good, but she couldn’t think of her address, and he probably wouldn’t know how to find it anyway. When he started to insist, she shushed him. “S’all right,” she said, and let him lean her against a wall. They weren’t in the alley anymore, though she wasn’t sure when exactly that had happened. “I gotta quarter in my pocketbook, Boo, you call my mama for me. Oh, no,” she moaned, then, “my pocketbook…”

“I got it, Miss Tamra, it’s okay,” he said, and offered it to her, though when she reached to take it, only one of her arms would move.

“Fuckin’ bullshit arm,” she mumbled, and waved vaguely for him to do it. “Change in the little pocket.”

“Okay, do you remember her number?” he asked, and now he had a pen from somewhere, too. 

“Whose number?” she asked, frowning.

“I need your mom’s phone number,” he said, and though she couldn’t imagine why, she told him, and he wrote it on his palm. “Now stay right here,” he insisted, and he sounded so serious that she promised she would. Anyway, her legs were going out from under her, so sliding down to sit right there on the sidewalk sounded like the best plan anyway. He took off at a run.

The shivering got so bad it made her whole body leap and twitch, and she wondered if this was what a seizure felt like. She sang soft, “If I could just touch the hem of his garment…” That was something to do with Sam, she was sure of it. _I know I'd be made whole._

Sam shook her awake again and smiled like sunshine when she opened her eyes and patted his hand. 

“Your mom is on her way,” he said, “I have to go help my dad and my brother now, okay?”

She snapped her fingers, triumphant. “Sam Cooke!” she exclaimed. 

“Winchester,” he said, frowning, and that didn’t make any sense at all.

“No, Boo, Sam Cooke,” she said, patiently. “Did ‘Touch the Hem of His Garment,’ been driving me crazy all night.”

“Okay,” he said, still not looking like he understood, but it was late and he was probably tired. Maybe she’d bring in her walkman to work, tomorrow, and play him some Sam Cooke when he came in.

“I—I’ll miss you, Miss Tamra,” he said, and that didn’t make sense, either. But he leaned in and kissed her cheek, even though she still smelled like vomit, and she squeezed his hand.

“Sweet as sugar, you are,” she said, fondly. “I’mma call you Sam Cookie,” she said, and laughed, because that was funny, but stopped when it made her head threaten to split.

“Good night, Miss Tamra,” he said, soft, and then he was gone.

***

It only took three days before the doctor cleared Tamra to go back to work, and even then her boss acted like he was doing her a favor by taking her back, because her arm was in a sling (broken in _two,_ places, thank you, _and_ her collarbone, too), since it was bound to slow her down working, and she couldn’t mop worth a damn one-armed. But she couldn’t afford to stay home, and she was hoping she’d see her Boo again, so she’d asked as nice as she could and even said she’d forfeit her tips until she was back up to speed, and that made her boss see the wisdom of letting her stay on.

She had a tupperware with an extra large slice of pecan pie in her bag, but it wound up going back home with her.

When that happened twice more, she started to think maybe her Boo wasn’t coming back, and life around the coffee shop started to go sort of dull and dingy around the edges again.

She couldn’t say for sure—most of that night was a blur, which the doctor said was normal for a concussion—but she was pretty sure he’d saved her life somehow. All she could remember for certain was deciding the boy was a cookie (whatever the hell that meant). That, and a shriek like wind and metal and dying that still made her break out in a sweat when she thought of it. Whatever had happened, though, they were sure she’d been attacked, and between the concussion and the shock, it was some kind of miracle she got home at all and didn’t choke to death on her own vomit or wind up dead in the fire that had scorched up all the bricks in the alley behind the shop. Somebody else hadn’t been so lucky, and apart from him being some kind of giant sumbitch nobody even knew who he was or where he was from, and no one seemed to be looking for him. Could have been her with nothing left to show she’d been there but bone and soot.

When another week passed, she stopped looking for Sam and his books and an excuse to give someone a little kindness, and the dull grey of the shop eventually bled into red again. Whenever her mama played her old Sam Cooke records, though, she started to get a little weepy. She never could quite figure out why.

**Author's Note:**

> The setting here is Kenner, LA. Which I visited in 1998 (a year after Sam, here), and it apparently made an impression.
> 
> The title is from the Sam Cooke song Tamra had stuck in her head toward the end, "Touch the Hem of His Garment."
> 
> ...Is it terrible I want some kind of gooey coffee beverage now? And to listen to Sam Cooke all night and slow dance?


End file.
